Carmelo Ventura
Classe 1995. Dopo aver viaggiato e lavorato in lungo e largo per l’Italia, si iscrive all’Accademia di Belle Arti di Reggio Calabria, dove consegue la triennale in pittura e prosegue con la magistrale in scultura. La sua ricerca coniuga rigore tecnico e profondità poetica, ponendo al centro il dialogo tra gesto, materia e memoria. Attraverso pittura, fotografia, scultura e installazioni site-specific, Ventura indaga le dinamiche del visibile e le tensioni dell’invisibile, restituendo forme sospese tra l’organico e l’archetipico.
Ha partecipato a diversi eventi e rassegne, tra cui:
- Infiorata di Noto, Maggio 2019, “Veni ca ti cantu storie di siciliani in America”
- Incontro con l’artista Gian Maria Tosatti (2021, modalità online)
- Biennale del Gattopardo, Agrigento Capitale della Cultura 2025
- Pubblicazione fotografica su “Battaglia sullo Stretto” (magazine regionale della Calabria)
- Contest “Onda Creativa”, Fondazione Cesare Berlingeri, Villa Paola Tropea, Giugno 2025
“Burocrazia”
Artist: Carmelo Ventura Date: 25 May 2026”
Title: Burocrazia
Material: Plaster
Year: 2024
Dimensions: 20 turtle shells; variable overall dimensions; modular installation. Single unit: 30 cm.”
The artwork Burocrazia forms part of the contemporary debate on processes of environmental and social transformation, exploring the tension between the inertia of human systems and the urgency of ecological change. The twenty plaster turtle shells represent a symbolic and material device through which the artist illustrates the structural slowness that characterises administrative and political dynamics in the management of the planet.The turtle, a symbol of longevity and natural balance, is stripped of its vitality and reduced to a mere form, a shell devoid of substance. This dispossession reflects the state of nature in the age of hyper-connectivity: a weakened ecosystem, immobilised by logics of control and bureaucratic mechanisms that, while claiming to protect, end up crystallizing its action.The seriality of the twenty elements, their arrangement in space, and the choice of plaster as a fragile and perishable material construct a visual metaphor for sterile repetition and institutional fragility. The work thus becomes an act of poetic denunciation of a system that, faced with the climate crisis, continues to respond slowly, formally, and with detachment.Within the broader context of reflections on Saving the World and Connecting Cultures, “Burocrazia” offers a subtle critique of the rhetoric of global efficiency, contrasting the language of speed with that of stasis. The artist doesn’t pit nature against humanity, but rather shows how both are trapped in the same shell of inertia: empty shells waiting to be inhabited by a new awareness.
Carmelo Ventura
Born in 1995. After travelling and working throughout Italy, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Reggio Calabria, where he completed a bachelor’s degree in painting and went on to study for a master’s degree in sculpture. His work combines technical rigour with poetic depth, focusing on the dialogue between gesture, material and memory. Through painting, photography, sculpture and site-specific installations, Ventura explores the dynamics of the visible and the tensions of the invisible, creating forms suspended between the organic and the archetypal.
He has taken part in various events and exhibitions, including:
- Infiorata di Noto, Maggio 2019, “Veni ca ti cantu storie di siciliani in America”
- Incontro con l’artista Gian Maria Tosatti (2021, modalità online)
- Biennale del Gattopardo, Agrigento Capitale della Cultura 2025
- Pubblicazione fotografica su “Battaglia sullo Stretto” (magazine regionale della Calabria)
- Contest “Onda Creativa”, Fondazione Cesare Berlingeri, Villa Paola Tropea, Giugno 2025
